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What is Bendable?

Lesson 3 from: Circuit Bending: Making Music By Rewiring Toys and Devices

J. Anthony Allen

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Lesson Info

3. What is Bendable?

Next Lesson: Tools You Will Need

Lesson Info

What is Bendable?

Okay, let's talk about what is bendable. Like I said before, I showed you that keyboard that that big keyboard that I just used is obviously bendable but trickier than most. So there's a couple key things that we're gonna be looking for when we look for something to circuit bend. Um, the 1st 1 is that it has to absolutely has to be able to run on batteries. Um, it's got to be battery power now. It can be battery powered and plug into the wall, Um, depending on what you're using it for. But it can't be something that needs to be plugged into the wall. That is just way too dangerous for us. And we're gonna talk more about why. Ah, that is the case when we get into talking about the safety stuff, but it has to be able to run on batteries. Um, that's rule number one. Rule number two is that it has to make sound. Um, you can't circuit Ben something to make cool sounds that doesn't already make sounds. Um, there's maybe a way to do it, but it was It's wave too complicated for me, so it's got...

to make sounds already. Um, I have seen, you know, you can circuit bend things like like I've seen people do stuff with that game controllers where they circuit bend them so that, you know, when they push like the fire button on on their Xbox controller, it actually, like, rapidly hits it like, a 1,000, times. Um, that could be possible, but I don't really know how to do that. So and I'm talking about music stuff here sound how to make cool sounds. So it's got to make sound to begin with. The next thing is that avoid stuff that looks like it's basically a little computer. Um, things like your I phoned, you know, like, yes, it makes sounds, but it's a whole computer in there, and you don't want to get in there. Um, in particular, Apple products are essentially unbending ble because they're so ah, closed in and and tight. You would need you need robots to get in there to do stuff. You can't really work inside of those things with your fingers. Very well to do what we need to do. Um, so avoid things that look like there's a computer inside of them. Um, things with, uh, touch screens and stuff like that is just gonna be way too complicated. Um, and a lot of the sounds air held in the microcontroller or the circuit board? Well, the microcontroller Let's just call it, um and those are very hard to get at, so we don't want computers. Computers are very difficult to work with. In the last thing kind of jumping off of that that I was look for is it's gotta have a circuit board that we can get our hands on. We don't want something really tiny. Um, I saw today when I was looking around for stuff to bend this like plastic toy machete that, like when you swing it, it made a sound on. I thought I could be kind of cool because it's a toy. It makes sound. That's great. I could circuit Ben that to make some crazy sounds when you swing it. But the thing the circuit board was gonna be like, the size of my thumbnail, and I wasn't gonna be able to get in there with my hands with a soldering iron and poke around. It would be really difficult. So I passed on that one um, the things that we look for tend to be ah, toys. Toys are great. Um, kids, toys that make little goofy sounds are fun to circuit bed because there's a lot of stuff to do on them. Um, also, people are really into circuit bending like effects pedals and stuff like that. It's not too hard. And there's a lot inside of those things They could be a little small to work on, but not too bad. So those are also popular. So those are the things that look for when we're looking at a toy. So or when we're looking for something the circuit bend. So, uh, we're gonna do one more video than after that. I'm going to pick out. I'm gonna go shopping and pick out something that you can see that I'm gonna be working on throughout this whole class. So, uh, let's move on and talking about the tools we're gonna need on and then we'll go shopping

Ratings and Reviews

Karolina Kaminska
 

I am a complete beginner to this topic and I enjoyed watching the free live stream of this course. It taught me enough to get started with some ideas, although I anticipate I'll have to follow up with other YouTube videos to ensure I understand enough for different kinds of toys and techniques. Thanks!

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